


Phoenix

by Memories_of_the_Shadows



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, One Piece
Genre: Family, Friendship, Gen, Nakama, Poneglyphes, Slash if you squint, Whitebeard Pirates - Freeform, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 06:39:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11641038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Memories_of_the_Shadows/pseuds/Memories_of_the_Shadows
Summary: A history of the world as told by one who lived it.





	Phoenix

Marco the Phoenix had lived a very long time. Even he had forgotten the exact number of years—had, in fact, stopped counting after the last of his family had died—but they all blended together anyway.

Most of that was due to childhood mistakes, trusting the wrong people, picking up the wrong things, and—most especially—eating post-magical-nuke fruit that DEATH had told him was fine and wouldn't do anything too bad.

He guessed living was not too bad, and never seeing his loved ones again? Marco could live with it; it was not like he had a choice ever since he had broken that stupid stick and doomed himself to an eternity of skipping entropy. DEATH told him later that if he hadn't done that, eventually the immortality would have gone away, likely when he gave up the cloak to his children. But he had been a stupid, reckless, pale, specky, bratty, rebellious teenager with a penchant for doing things without a plan, or even much forethought.

Nevertheless, living was not so bad, not anymore. It had been, for a while. Watching his world be torn apart by a war that was too long in coming for anything he did to make a difference: a war so bad that it changed the shape of the very earth, and released magics long kept hidden—or rightly forgotten. He had fought, and saved as many people as he could. Luckily, humans are the most adaptable creatures on earth, and the magic in the air only makes that easier.

DEATH had been there, when the first plant was growing after the world had changed. It had said that there was new ways that magic could run through people now, and the old ways were going away. Marco remembers a faded memory of clenching a warm stick— _’wand’_ his head corrects helpfully but it has been over a century since anyone has said that word out loud—and thinks that perhaps humanity can get it right this time. He eats the first fruit from the tree, the one that DEATH said would change everything, with hope stuck deep in his throat. It tastes more awful than any medicine. Humanity does not get it right.

Wars come again, and still hate, pain, fear rule the day. Another savior—and how well Marco remembers his own time as that and wishes the poor sod luck—comes and fails to truly change the world. Marco decides that sleeping is easier than watching humans craft weapons to use. He does not wake for years because he does not want to.

The world has changed again by the time he woke up again. DEATH tells him stories of that first new savior— _'Joyboy'_ a nickname? A promise? Marco does not know, does not care to remember—and Marco gets on the first ship away from DEATH so he doesn't have to hear anymore.

When he was a boy— _’Harry, your name is Harry’_ —he had wanted to protect and serve. It had been his driving goal for years. In this world it seemed that was still needed. He joined the fledgling marine force, served on the Ox Lloyds and saw the corruption of both the World Government and the pirates who opposed them. He fakes his death against Oars and goes back to sleep.

This time it was not DEATH, or loneliness that wakes him but a young man with yellow hair and a long chin.

Marco knows that he has lived too long and lost too much to love again. But this Edward Newgate who is so young, so hopeful, who only wants a family to call his own, who loves drinking good alcohol and fighting; there is something about him that makes Marco want to stay awake. Time had worn away everything that Marco had but when he looked at Edward Newgate—not a savior, not an enemy, does not care to change the world in his image—and that lump in his throat that he once called hope stops tasting so much like ash.

Thirty more years pass, just the two of them, and Edward is the only one Marco has told his secrets to. More people begin to believe in Edward and as he names each of them his son he marks them with his symbol—but Marco never agrees, it has been millennia since his own father died, and while Edward looks older than Marco now it is uncomfortable for him—and they all love him the more for it. And Gol D. Roger—both friend and rival to Edward—sees the young boy that Marco had once been, the heroic teenager, the hopeful adult, and the heartbroken man that he was now, all at once.

Roger asks Marco to join his crew. He is not entirely sure if Roger is serious, and that small part of him that still calls itself Harry wants to go. But Edward— _'Whitebeard? But it's a mustache not a beard’_ —is furious that Roger would try to take him away. And for once he doesn't try to call Marco his son— _’stolen breaths, flame traveling his spine, yellow hair glinting in the sun, green eyes bleached to blue, tremors that have nothing to do with power wracking his body’_ —and Roger laughs and leaves with his crew; without Marco.

Marco lets Whitebeard put his symbol on him, painting it on his chest with sure, gentle fingers. DEATH clucks at him, an oddly human gesture, but says nothing. Marco ignores it.

Twenty years pass before Marco sees DEATH again, and he knows that Whitebeard’s time is close, it has been for a long time. DEATH, as inhuman as it is, can be kind, especially to Marco. It is giving him a chance. Marco does not take it. He lives on, and does not go back to sleep. Whitebeard would not have wanted him to give up like that again.

Years pass, and Marco slowly loses everything that had been left to him to protect. Blackbeard stole the territory, the power, the lives of most of the crew. The rest had died with Whitebeard trying to save Ace. But not Marco. He fights the urge to sleep again.

He had only met Straw Hat Luffy once. He had heard Ace’s stories— _'Shanks gave up that hat of Roger’s? To this kid? He must be special.’ ‘Of course he is! He’s my brother!’_ —and the boy he had met at the war of the best lived up to them. Marco knew Luffy had a crew but knew very little about them. But Nekomamushi shows up with two of Luffy’s crew members and they are unlike anything he would have thought about them.

Nico Robin he had heard of, never believed the lies the World Government fed the world, but the cyborg Franky was new. But Marco recognized a bit of Vegapunk’ technology, utilized in ways that the doctor would never have thought of. Nekomamushi had only brought them along when they heard of Edward and Bakkin Weevil of the Shichibukai’s intentions to find Marco and the treasure of Whitebeard— _'Lies, there was no treasure’_ —for his protection.

DEATH laughed at the idea of Marco dying, of needing any protection from these mortals whatsoever. Marco ignored it. The straw hats seemed distracted, and it occurred to him that none of them had mentioned where Luffy was. When he mentioned that, their only reaction was Robin smiling.

“I've heard of you, you know.” Her voice was like a shock to the system, after nearly a year by himself.

“I was first commander of the Whitebeard pirates, lots of people have heard of me.” Marco takes a long drag from the bottle of sake that Nekomamushi brought.

“Dereshishishi. No, _lightning phoenix_ , on the poneglyphs. How long have you been alive?”

More laughing from DEATH, and Marco shivers that someone else knows this. “Long enough,” he said, tone curt.

“Do you know what happened during the void century?”

He shrugged. “Slept through it. Life gets boring sometimes.” Marco hears Franky snort, and when he looks the cyborg’s blue hair had changed shape. Robin just nodded. Only Nekomamushi looks shocked at the idea. “You can't have come here just to ask me about that.”

It takes a minute for Nekomamushi to come together enough to voice his concerns, and ask Marco to come to Wano with them. It takes Marco a minute himself to remember Edward’s last request of him— _'Don’t you let him die, Marco.’_ —and he finally rises to his feet.

As their ship leaves the white marble of Whitebeard’s tomb catches the light of the setting sun.


End file.
